


The Lady's Boon

by osprey_archer



Category: Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope
Genre: Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 06:25:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17136662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: When Kate falls very ill, the Lady appears.





	The Lady's Boon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yhlee (etothey)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etothey/gifts).



Christopher Heron recognized her even from across the field. He had come to the door of the manor house to breathe in fresh air after the closeness of Kate’s sickroom, and stood there gazing without seeing at the fields of melting snow streaked with red from the sunset: gazing into a future without Kate, whose fever had climbed relentlessly these last three days: who seemed to be burning up inside. What a fool he had been, to believe this happiness could be his…

It was then that he saw the dark figure picking her way down the muddy lane - and he knew her. He had seen her only once, in the firelight on the night when he was the king of the land about the pay the teind; and then she had stood tall and commanding, whereas now she walked stooped in tinker’s rags. But he knew her, and his heart which seemed to have frozen began to beat again in his chest, so hard that he felt it might break his ribs. 

“Lady,” he said, when she was close enough for his voice to reach her. “How did you know to come here?”

“What do you mean, good sir?” she asked, all servility, with none of the Fairy Folk’s lilt to her voice. 

That didn’t shake Christopher’s certainty. “Kate,” he said, and choked on the name. “My wife is very ill. If there is anything in your art that might save her…”

Her pretense of servility dropped away. She straightened, and although she was still a good deal shorter than he was, she gazed down upon him with a fine disdain: the Lady of the Fairy Folk gazing at a mortal who was less than a worm at her feet.

“I know you have every reason to wish me ill,” Christopher said. “I don’t ask you to do it for me. But for Kate - if you will do it for Kate…”

She regarded him, remote as a star. “I have no reason to wish you ill,” she told him. “You never would have failed us - if Kate had not claimed you.”

The world went gray around him. “Please, Lady,” he said, and with effort he bent to one knee, bowing his head, as he would before their own good queen Bess. “Please.”

It seemed an age he knelt there in the mud before his stoop, with the icy slush melting under his knee. But at last the Lady’s cold fingers rested for a moment on the nape of his neck, and she said, “I owe her a boon. And so do you, though you do not know it.”

“I owe Kate more than I could ever repay,” Christopher said.

She went past him, her step so light that he would not have known she passed but that her shawl brushed his cheek. He remained on his knee a long time.

***

When Kate opened her eyes and saw the Lady standing there, her cracked lips parted and she murmured, “Am I dreaming?” 

For it seemed very likely - although why she should dream the Lady in a tinker’s ragged shawl, rather than the green kirtle of her power, she did not know. She tried to sit, but a chill shuddered through her frame, and she fell back beneath the covers.

“No dream,” the Lady said.

“Did you know I was ill?” Kate asked, though it hurt her aching throat to talk. 

“I know many things.”

Which was no answer. Kate’s head hurt too much for the riddles of the Fairy Folk. And yet she was glad the Lady had come to see her - even if the Lady only came to gloat and watch Kate die; it was only justice, and Kate was glad to have a last look at her.

“Do you want me to save you?” the Lady asked.

“I know you will not,” Kate replied. Even this little bit of talking was tiring her: her eyes wanted to close, and the room around grew indistinct. The sun had set; the only light came from the candles now, fluttering, indistinct. They might have been in the caverns again, the little cave where Gwenhyfara taught her to fall and to walk. And the Lady stood above her once again, as she had on the day she had offered to make Kate one of them.

Kate closed her hand. The old scar where the cross of iron had cut her tugged at her palm. “Gwenhyfara?” she murmured, with a rough voice that would have made Gwenhyfara shudder.

“She is well enough. She dances.”

“Around the dancing oak,” Kate murmured, and coughed softly.

“I do not know that I could help you,” the Lady mused. “Even if I had a mind.”

A small hope blossomed, like a candle flame. But Kate said only, “It’s no matter. I am glad to have seen you.”

The Lady became even more still, so that she seemed only a shadow in that dim room. Then she slipped away, and Kate wondered if she had been only a dream; but she could not hold onto any thoughts for very long now, and that too drifted away from her, and the bright strange visions of her fever filled her mind. 

But then the Lady was there - again - only Kate had forgotten her first arrival; and so she said, baffled, “Lady? How did you come to be here?” And then she began to cough, and did not stop for some time.

The Lady waited for Kate to finish coughing. She held in both hands one of the earthenware crocks from the kitchen, and when Kate’s coughing fit was over, she lifted it to her lips, and said, “Come. Drink.”

Kate turned her face away like a fretful child. “It will take my wits away.” 

“Your wits are already wandering. This will bring them back, if anything can.” 

So Kate drank. It took a long time for her to drink it all: she coughed after nearly every sip. But at last she had swallowed it all, and the Lady lifted the edge of her ragged shawl and wiped a little off Kate’s chin.

Probably that was only thoroughness, and not kindness, but it was Kate’s undoing. Hot tears came into her dry eyes, and she said, “Will you stay?”

The Lady had already begun to move away, but she paused at the sound of Kate’s voice, like a bird on the verge of flight. 

“You said once you owed me a boon,” Kate reminded her.

“What do you think this has been?”

“But I didn’t ask it of you,” Kate protested. 

The Lady stood still, her face very pale and cold in the moonlight. “Very well,” she said. “I did that because you pleased me once.” 

She came back to Kate and climbed onto the bed, and spread her gossamer shawl over the top of the blankets. In the moonlight the shawl looked like a thousand overlaid spiderwebs, thin but very strong, and Kate wondered how she had ever thought it ragged.

The Lady slipped beneath the blankets, and curved her body around Kate’s, so that they fit together like two shells. Kate, for the first time since the fever had come upon her, felt truly warm. 

“Now sleep,” the Lady said.

And Kate for once in her life quietly obeyed the Lady, and slept. 

***

When Kate woke the next morning, the sun was bright and the air was cold, and she was alone in her bed. 

She was still very weak. But her head was clear; the pain was only an echo of itself. Goosebumps rose on her arms when she sat up, but she did not slide shivering under the covers, as she had on the worst days of the fever. 

“Lady?” Kate asked - although she knew that the Lady was gone, not merely from the house, but from the area entirely; she had slipped away in the night, if she had ever been there, and Kate had not imagined it all. 

But Kate was not alone. Christopher heard her voice; and he came in, and his drawn pale face softened into a smile like the sunrise, and he came and sat beside her on the bed and took her hands. “Kate,” he said. 

“Christopher,” she said, and they smiled at each other, and sat a long time holding each other’s hands. But at last Kate said, “Was the Lady here?” 

“Yes,” he said. “I fell asleep on the settle in front of the fire; I didn’t see her go. But the snow is all melting. And…” He released her hand to retrieve a posy from his doublet: snowdrop flowers, slightly crushed and drooping from the warmth of his body. He put them in her hand and closed her fingers about them. “There are snowdrops - all over the manor, I should say, though I have not walked it all.”

“Do that this morning, then,” Kate suggested. “I’d like to hear how the drains have withstood the winter.”

“Oh, Kate!” He kissed her quickly, and stood. “Shall I bring you more snowdrops?”

Kate caressed the soft petals with one finger. She felt tired again, but a good tired: the kind that promised a calm and healing sleep. “No. Let’s let them grow.”


End file.
